Luellen Smiley is a creative nonfiction writer, author, columnist, and historian whose writing is deeply rooted in a controversial personal history. She is the daughter of Allen Smiley, a close friend, associate, and business partner of notorious Las Vegas gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Her father was sitting only feet from Siegel when Siegel was murdered in Beverly Hills on June 20, 1947.
That extraordinary childhood history became the foundation for Smiley’s first book, Cradle of Crime: A Daughter’s Tribute, published in 2017. The memoir explores what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a man connected to organized crime while trying to reconcile her love for her father with the secrecy, fear, and criminal world surrounding him.
Smiley’s work has appeared in publications including the New York Post, MORE Magazine, Southern California newspapers, and Authorlink. She wrote the newspaper column Smiley’s Dice—Adventures in Livingness, which earned a Blue-Ribbon Award from the California Newspapers Association for her Growing Up With Gangsters columns.
Her interest in her father’s history also led her to become a researcher and commentator on organized crime history. She has participated in television, radio, and documentary interviews.
Smiley’s next book, Gaslighting Greta, will be published this year. A personal story that reads like fiction. Her own website describes the project as exploring a woman whose life is destabilized by gaslighting and psychological manipulation.
Her writing career reflects a recurring theme: using personal experience and research to uncover the truth behind complicated relationships and extraordinary lives. From the secretive world surrounding her father and Bugsy Siegel to the deeply personal territory of Gaslighting Greta, Smiley’s work transforms difficult experiences into stories of survival, discovery, and ultimately reclaiming one’s voice.
Luellen Smiley is an author whose life has given her an unusual perspective on secrecy, manipulation, family loyalty, betrayal, and survival—and she uses that perspective as the raw material for her nonfiction storytelling.
The list of projects stares at me; donating boxes of what I can do without, vacuuming, calling friends, grocery shopping because my frig looks too vacant, finishing the manicure I started yesterday, estimates on the cracked steps, and painting the front porch, well, it’s a short list because I live a short life. Not working on a specific project, other than managing my home, tenants, and repairs. It leaves me with more time than I have ever had, to think, process and write. This week’s Tik-Tok hearing enraptured my attention. I stopped my life to watch game changers change the game. The result will most likely ignite protests, appeals, and millions of Tiks! I write because my head is full of thoughts. I exert neutrality to ignore the number of readers that read it, share it, or like it. It’s not any easier than being the only one without a date on Valentine’s. Day. Why do we all crave an audience? Hmm, has social media collapsed our self-esteem, importance, and relevance? It is comical; hits, clicks, and shares mean we matter.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
IF YOU DON’T SHARE YOU DON’T CARE. I’ve just started recommending a few of my wordpress pals, and their writings. I still resist the word blogging because it sounds like slobbing. Web writers are amazingly talented, from all over the world, and all ages. I’ve learned about the cultures through their stories from: India, Russia, Brazil, Ireland, Scotland, Europe, and the Middle East.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Our society has led us to the path of non-involvement. FB did that,
Email did that, cell phones did that. Yea, I love em’ for the
thing they knew we’d love them for; a delete button.
We, I mean most of us that don’t control millions of political decisions, cannot handle much more. But we could save ourselves from a real famine, a civil war , or war on our country. Who would come to our aid? I really wonder. I bet on us; the ones who’ve always struggled.
We are not involved with each other anymore; it’s like having a manicure to break out of a relationship, and if you lose your job you won’t have enough money for a manicure. So you don’t lose your job; you work eighteen hours a day and get paid less than your staff. But nobody cares; not unless you go viral or if you have a million Blog stats. Social media. Then you will go somewhere; you will have a job. Artists, are digital: writers, photographers; musicians. Who knows whose who anymore. I think Theater is the only venue left of our physical involvement. Theater is life; and no one walks out without having something to say. I also include: dance, concerts, opera, poetry readings, performance artist, and comedians. I prefer to see it live!
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
